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00:00:01
S3E9 Kelli Corney
141 Plays6 months ago
Thanks for listening to our episode with Kelli Corney.
Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
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Email Meredith: [email protected]
We loved talking to Kelli.
Follow her on LinkedIn here:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/kellicorney
Sign up for her Maven course here:
https://maven.com/kelli-corney/minimum-viable-brand
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Video Content Discussion
00:00:04
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to Content People. I'm your host Meredith Farley.
00:00:16
Speaker
I'm just going to ask if you record video when you do this or if it's just audio. Right now, no, we're not doing video. I'm not doing video. I think it's helpful, but I feel like, so for social, and actually I don't know if I mentioned this to you, but this woman, Ariel, who's great, who did this very Instagram for a long time was going to start having to content people Instagram. And I know like video tends to do well for these like in reels to promote it.
00:00:44
Speaker
But I feel like, like you and I having a convo like this could be great. And actually maybe I'll do a little screenshot, but I feel like when I see podcasters and it's remote podcasting and they just post and it's like them like smiling and nodding along while the expert talks. I'm like, you look.
00:01:00
Speaker
You look a little dumb. It's not great. It might be good for listening, but it's not the best branding for yourself. I don't know. What do you think about it?
Creating Video Clips for Social Media
00:01:09
Speaker
It's just because what I was planning on doing when I poured my own little thing of just so you can pull clips from it.
00:01:15
Speaker
Yeah. So like the 10 second clip of something interesting that someone says or whatever. It's not like posting the whole thing, but just... No, even that's what I'm talking about though. Like those quick little clips. One could totally do it. You could totally do it. No, the person talking. You don't have to show both people. It depends on how you've got the video set up. Yeah, and that's a good point. You could just do the person talking. Because it's one of the good ideas, always. Well, I feel like I've often seen it where
00:01:43
Speaker
It does the thing, I guess like Google Meet does it when you record where it just, it only shows the person who's talking. So the person who's not talking, the person who's talking becomes full screen and then the person who's not talking is invisible until they talk again and then it swaps and you see them.
00:01:58
Speaker
Oh, I feel like I've seen more on Instagram. It'll be like one person on the top, one person on the bottom, like two squares. I've seen it other ways too, where you just show, anyway, you could do it either way. Yeah. Yeah.
Comparison with Big Podcasts
00:02:10
Speaker
And also I think the people who have like the big podcast, like what's her name? Alex, call her daddy and Ryan holiday. They've got like such nice setups that it doesn't have that same vibe. It just looks cool. It's like a little interview. Yeah. You want to watch the whole thing. Kelly. Thanks for.
Introduction to Kelly and Her Expertise
00:02:29
Speaker
your third content people conversation? We just can't stop. Official friend of the pod. So for anyone listening who doesn't know who Kelly is or hasn't listened to her, like she's a good friend of mine. He's also incredibly experienced marketer and with a really awesome focus on brand. I would definitely recommend that first interview that we did together. I think it was like episode 15 of season one, but you were just like spitting morsels of brand wisdom.
00:02:59
Speaker
But for anyone who doesn't, hasn't listened or doesn't know you, could you intro yourself and talk a little bit about who you are, what you do?
Kelly's Brand Strategy Journey
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Thanks. Very happy to be here again. I should probably have an easier, faster answer for what I do, but I feel like it's always changing. I've had a long career in the media and advertising world and recently have started moving in different directions. So I am a brand strategist by trade and spend a lot of time working with companies on helping to define their positioning.
00:03:31
Speaker
but also work that's deeper than that. That's more foundational for a company. I think a lot of times when people talk about brand, they just think about the sort of external stuff that you see. The most stereotypical of that is a logo, all the kind of visual assets that come out of something, or just even the tone of voice, the copy, all of that stuff. Those are all parts of building a brand, but those are just like tactical executions.
00:03:59
Speaker
Brand strategy itself is something much deeper and it's just part of your business plan. It's as foundational as any other kind of strategy that you put together for your company.
Minimum Viable Brand Framework
00:04:09
Speaker
And businesses who do this well and who do it soon have a really strong foundation to build from. And we'll get into this more later, but that's why I have developed this way of thinking about it called minimum viable brand.
00:04:23
Speaker
I've worked with a lot of startups over the past couple of years, whereas before I really worked in big media organizations and with some of the biggest companies in the world. I did a huge campaign at the Financial Times with Facebook, Meta, I worked with WeWork, other big tech companies. And although there are a lot of universal things and themes that run between how you do brand building,
00:04:49
Speaker
There are a lot of things that are specific to startups and I built a course and built kind of a framework called minimum viable brand that is specifically uses all the learnings that I had over the past year working with startups through this accelerator and through my consulting practice and really got it boiled it down to the most essential things that you need to do when you're in the early stages of building a company.
00:05:14
Speaker
You've been such a generous consultant for me. What I really appreciate about your approach to branding, which it seems like you've refined down and is now at the heart of your MVB Maven course, is it's so clear and tangible.
00:05:29
Speaker
It's not super complex, but it's really, it's very, it's not easy work, but it's like straightforward work. When you say MVB, minimum viable brand, can you define it? And MVB, what does that mean to you? Let's just start there. Yeah. Thanks. And always happy to help you work on stuff.
00:05:49
Speaker
So minimum viable brand is just a way of thinking about getting that solid first draft done for yourself. I think a lot of times startups and early stage companies will put off thinking about brand until later. They're like, oh, we just need to build the product. We just need to get the essentials done. And then that's something we do later. We'll just paint it on top. Once we know what we're selling, get product market fit, then we'll think about brand.
00:06:19
Speaker
And I think that's a really, a misunderstanding of what brand is and why it's important. I have talked to founders who have said tech tech founders who are like, wow, after they've done the work, I would advise people in the future. Don't write any code until you've done this work because to inform even what product you're building.
00:06:39
Speaker
Because it addresses a lot of fundamental questions. We can maybe talk a little bit about the work that we've done together as some sort of starter points for this. Yeah. But you talk about things and figure out like, who really is your audience? And when you and I started working on the Medbury brand together,
00:06:57
Speaker
It's not like you had no idea who you were going to serve. When you're building a company, you have some idea of who your customer is. But it's not always defined in a way that's going to actually be helpful for you. And people often skip really crucial steps, like doing a bit of research, talking to people, like actually hearing from your own, from that person's mouth, like in their own words, what are they struggling with?
Importance of Flexible Brand Strategy
00:07:19
Speaker
Because we make so many more assumptions than we think that we do. And it's really about taking the time and the headspace
00:07:26
Speaker
to really think about those things so that as you're building, and this is where the minimum viable brand thing comes in, what we do is build a playbook that has all of these key elements that are the same elements that the biggest companies in the world will use to build their brands to. But just do them in a way that's quick. But you don't have to spend months doing all of this when you're an early stage company because things are going to pivot and evolve. But you just need to have the elements there so you can be tweaking them as you go.
00:07:53
Speaker
Because what you might do is decide, you might end up refining who that target audience is in a way that then impacts how you build your product.
00:08:02
Speaker
that then impact something else down the chain. So it allows you to be a bit flexible. And I think the truth is that things are always changing. The world is always changing. Remember when COVID happened and everyone freaked out and like the advertising world was going crazy thinking like, oh, we have to change all of our tactics now. Everything moves so much faster. And because things happen at a faster rate, you just need to be able to have the tools to adjust along the way.
00:08:30
Speaker
And that's really the purpose of doing this is to get people a quick first draft to really educate them about the core elements of building a brand and then be able to take that away and use it, iterate on it as you grow and evolve. I definitely want to come back to the really tangible way that you helped me with Medbury in the last few weeks.
00:08:53
Speaker
But I like MVB because it reminds me of SFD, like shitty first draft in writing. So I think your MVB is more polished. It's the idea that sometimes you just have to get something down and that's going to help you unlock the more sophisticated, resonant ideas later and give you some, it gives you a starting point. So if someone were to do the Maven course with you and say they're
00:09:15
Speaker
say that they are a founder, maybe like me, if we didn't know each other. And I was like, okay, I know I need to work on brand to grow and land more clients, but I don't know where to start. Or maybe they are a marketer at a startup and the company's paying for them to take this course to just educate themselves a little. What does the course cover and what do they walk away from it with?
Kelly's Course on Brand Strategy
00:09:40
Speaker
Yes, great question. And I really, I think this is a framing that people could probably disagree with. I felt a little nervous actually to put it out because I think a lot of people want to believe that a brand, you build it once and it lasts forever. The world that we live in today isn't like that and companies aren't like that. They're always growing and changing. And while there are things that you want to have stand the test of time,
00:10:03
Speaker
for example your purpose statement that should be something that stays true for five ten years and because it has something you really need to commit to for the long term so minimum viable brand is exactly what you said it's like a shitty first draft of your brand you don't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars working with agencies
00:10:23
Speaker
I know I've done the work at agencies. I've done many projects like that. I know what they're like. And I'm not saying that's a terrible thing to do. And I think every company needs to do those kind of processes at some point. But when you're just starting out, you're like, I can't do it now because I don't have the resources. It's going to take too long. And here's where your company's going to evolve.
00:10:45
Speaker
So you feel like it's a wasted investment, but actually the things that you do by creating a brand strategy are some of the most core foundational elements of just your business strategy in general. So the minimum viable brand is just like you said, it's this kind of shitty first draft. We do it in two weeks. We basically build a playbook of all the brand strategy frameworks.
00:11:05
Speaker
that you need to complete the picture. Okay. So for, if someone were to take the course, it's two weeks long. Is that right? Yes. And how many classes in total is it? Or I don't know if classes are the right word, but like how many times did I meet as a cohort with you? Yeah, this is a live cohort based course. So it's not something you sign up for and.
00:11:30
Speaker
passively watch videos online, you are enrolled with a cohort of other founders, marketers like you, and you work through the course content together. I also teach it live. So we're all showing up in a Zoom room together and working for a couple of hours. And then in between that time, so there's two hour classes for two weeks. So there's four classes total. Okay. Each one is two hours long.
00:11:59
Speaker
And that's when you're in the room with the entire cohort. And then I have office hours in between that where people can sign up for one-on-one time with me. So essentially what you do is you come in on a Tuesday, do the two-hour course with all of the rest of the cohort, and then the next day you can have a one-on-one session with me where we look at all of the work that you did one-on-one, and then I'll give
00:12:21
Speaker
individual kind of consulting on that and we'll build it together. So it's a good mix of you doing the work and having to actually learn about these frameworks and foundations yourself which is of course if you're a marketer something you might want to do if you don't have brand strategy as part of your skill set or if you're a founder
00:12:40
Speaker
It's really important to know this stuff. You don't have to be an expert at brand strategy, but you need to understand what are the elements of building a lasting brand that people will care about, that feels authentic, that's exciting and interesting, that builds community, right? Those are important things for founders to know and be able to talk about. So it allows you to get your hands dirty a bit.
00:13:04
Speaker
get into the content, but then I'm there to support you as well. So it's a cheaper way of being able to hire me as a consultant, but also just to learn and get the work done. Yeah, I feel like that's cool that.
00:13:18
Speaker
folks are learning the frameworks for a brand and doing the work themselves, but also get your eyes on it. So you can be like, okay, great job. Here's what you need to work on as a professional doing this. And also for the brand, you need to change these words to this or something. So it's like a double whammy. What are the tangible kind of assets or exercises that someone who takes the course will walk away from it with? Yeah. So it's organized into three big sections. This is the framework I always use.
00:13:46
Speaker
which is purpose, position, and personality. Purpose is the first thing that we do, which is all about defining the change you want to see in the world, irrespective of financial gain. It's getting clear on why you do what you do,
00:14:05
Speaker
It's what makes people want to root for you. And it plays a big role in everything from your consumers caring about you, your customers caring about you, but also aligning people to want to come work for you. And it helps make people feel part of something. So a purpose statement sounds like we exist to blank. And it can be just like a sentence or two, right? It's not like a manifesto.
00:14:28
Speaker
Absolutely. It's just that quick sentence because this is something that actually helps a lot when you're pitching or talking to investors. Investors can only remember one thing. I have been in the position of an investor myself. I've invested in a whole court of startups through the accelerator, but I also have a lot of friends who are investors and I know how they think. Like they are tired at the end of the workday, like everyone else. And you want to have that like one thing that sticks out that when
00:14:55
Speaker
somebody goes home at night to their partner. They're like, Hey, I met this really cool company today. They do this. You want to have people be able to give people that like key takeaway. That's easy to repeat and remember.
Brand Purpose and Positioning
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah. Something to do with the bigger vision of what you're working towards. And that's what defining your purpose statement helps you do.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, I will say I think that was a hard one for some founders because some of them are like, I'm doing this for money. Like sometimes it's like they have to retro engineer that purpose behind it, which I think it's still important to do in that instance. I don't know what's your take on it.
00:15:34
Speaker
It's interesting. I feel like there's two kind of founders you meet. One is I have this thing that I think I can make money with and I want to turn it into a company. And the other is I have this thing I'm so passionate about. I'm trying to figure out how to make money doing it.
00:15:50
Speaker
And I think for the latter, a purpose statement is probably pretty easy because they already know what they're working towards for the former. It's a bit harder. But what I will say is it's always there. If you're building a good, if you're making something good,
00:16:08
Speaker
then it will link back to something that has meaning to people. It just will. And there's, there's a specific framework I use to do this. I think when you have conversation about it like this and you're like, wow, what's my purpose? I actually have a slide in the presentation that I give. It's usually, okay, just go brainstorm it now. Bye. And then I'm like, all right, just kidding. We actually have a framework get there because it's when I, if I just ask you the question, it's so hard to come up with something that sounds compelling. So we use a framework called the big ideal, which is something that was developed by Ogilvy, one of
00:16:37
Speaker
the biggest, oldest agencies in the world, famous, and has been used on brands like Dove, famous brands that have famous campaigns that have lasted the test of time. And Dove in particular is an interesting one because they still have the exact same purpose statement on their website that they had, I think they did this exercise with Ogilvy in 2004. Wow. So 20 years.
00:17:05
Speaker
And if you think they have the really iconic, we remember when we were like really young, they came out with this like for every body and it was all this like body positivity for women, which was something quite groundbreaking at the time. And so how did they get there? They sell soap, right? It's hard to see the connection, but the framework is, it's a Venn diagram of two things. The first is your brand's best self.
00:17:30
Speaker
which is just what your product does when it delivers at its best. So for Dove, this was in their Venn diagram for the big ideal, they said, a gentle alternative to soap.
00:17:44
Speaker
So that's their brand at its best. Then the other half of the Venn diagram is about a cultural tension. So what is happening in the world that's relevant to what you do? And there's a lot of things this can come from. It can come from insight, from research you've done, or it just come from hashing out what are your beliefs around the category that you're in or what are your beliefs about
00:18:10
Speaker
the things that are happening in the world that feel relevant to the product that you're making. And so for Dove, around that time, this is like when Photoshop was first invented and when people started Photoshopping images of models, right, of women especially. And their cultural insight was, I can't remember the exact stat off the top of my head, but it was a really high percentage of women felt bad about their bodies because of Photoshop.
00:18:35
Speaker
And so their cultural tension was about in this world in the age of Photoshop that women don't feel good about their bodies. So when you bring those two things together, you can see where that campaign came from and where the sort of purpose statement behind that came from. So that's how you get there. And it's interesting because when you do it this way is that it's not just a self-serving purpose that you're coming up with. It's something that people care about because it has to do with something that's happening in culture.
00:19:02
Speaker
So as brands evolve over time, would you imagine that the left circle of the Venn diagram, which is like your brand's best self probably stays the same, but then the right circle, which is the cultural tension of the moment that's relevant is the one that like maybe gets changed out a little bit. Either can change because especially when you're a startup, you usually have one product, right? You're like building this one product and then you might expand over time after that.
00:19:27
Speaker
So your brand's best self might be something a bit more specific at first, and then it might grow to encapsulate more things.
00:19:36
Speaker
So then we move on to, so purpose, like we said, it's just about defining that kind of longer term vision for where you're going. Your position is actually where we spend most of the time. There's the most work to be done there and it's the most complicated. Position is all about defining the space you occupy in your target customer's mind.
00:19:58
Speaker
And there are lots of indicators that you don't know or haven't defined your position well enough. If you have employees, ask 10 of your customers or employees what you do. Need a two in one sentence and you'll get 10 different answers back.
00:20:18
Speaker
And I think crucially, if you're not clearly defining your position, other people will do it for you because they'll just talk about it in natural, oh, what is this thing that you spot? Oh, it's an electric toothbrush. I don't know. They'll give an answer. So unless you tell people how you want them to think about your product, they'll do it for you. So you want to be in control of that. Yeah. There's a lot to get into here. We start out
00:20:44
Speaker
With something that you and I have spent a lot of time working on with Medbury so far, thinking about your audience and really defining who your customer is. And we do that from a couple different points of view. Getting into the difference between what a marketing view of a customer is versus a brand view of a customer.
00:21:03
Speaker
And marketing usually calls your audience something like a ICP, a ideal customer profile. It's a lot more about demographics, site, and just defining that group in a way that you could maybe target on an ad.
00:21:21
Speaker
A brand point of view is really what I like to call a hero mindset, which is about the sort of aspirational mindset of that person. And that's something that transcends demographics and psychographics. It's really about like, how do you see yourself as a person? We all aspire to be something different. No one sees themselves exactly as they are today, right? You always imagine yourself as this future version of yourself that you're moving towards.
00:21:51
Speaker
And that's based in like values and a lot of things that go a bit deeper. And that's what we work on uncovering. And then once you know that and actually it's freeing in a way, because there's this like weird trick that happens when you are thinking about who you want to serve, where you get like really nervous about
00:22:12
Speaker
alienating people because you're like, no, I just want customers. And I think what feels really freeing to people is when we do this kind of hero mindset is you're like, actually, it is something that crosses a lot of those demographic and psychographic barriers and can reach different, you can see how your brand can expand out, but you want to start with the most specific version of that person.
Refining Medbury's Target Audience
00:22:33
Speaker
And yeah, I don't know. Maybe you want to talk a little bit about how you found working on this for Medbury.
00:22:40
Speaker
So the work we did here was really helpful. Like you and I just had a couple of conversations, which were so useful to just talk things out with someone else who you and I say this a lot, but I do find in particular this type of work really hard to do for myself, even though I have experience and I think I'm good at doing it for other people and other brands.
00:23:02
Speaker
And having you as a thought partner on it was truly unlocked a lot of really helpful things for me that honestly have helped me sign a couple of big ticket clients and revamped the website in the last month. Though it's not up yet. So if anyone looks at the Midbury website, don't blame Kelly for the current data. But like you and I talked through in particular, one thing that I was
00:23:24
Speaker
Having a challenge with Medbury was that a lot of the leads that were coming to us were founders because we were presenting ourselves as really great LinkedIn branding and execution for founders, execs, public figures. And when we put up a great case study or a great testimonial,
00:23:44
Speaker
I'd get a ton of leads, but most of those leads were from founders who needed our services, but couldn't pay our pretty premium price point. And so I was in a position that probably a lot of folks who run businesses understand where the leads weren't as qualified as they could be because I hadn't yet come to what now seems like the obvious conclusion.
00:24:06
Speaker
that actually founders are not really the right fit for Medbury unless they're seven figure plus, or they're a few years in and they've got enough revenue. So when you and I talked, I feel like the first thing we got to is, okay, actually we're targeting execs.
00:24:20
Speaker
not founders and that changed my messaging. It actually, I feel made me even in our marketing and the like my own LinkedIn promotion for stuff feel more authentic to myself because I think I realized I was like, I'm an exec. I wasn't exact for seven years.
00:24:36
Speaker
I knew exactly how to talk to execs, trying to talk to a broader group of founders, solopreneurs, public figures was harder. And if what you're talking about is you don't need to be everything to everybody. And actually what we are and what Midbury needed to be felt so much more authentically aligned to myself anyway. And so we talked through those. And then you gave me some great exercises and I went away and did some work. And there's two different types of execs we work with. There's some who work. They know.
00:25:05
Speaker
that LinkedIn is powerful and they want to build their personal brand for themselves. They maybe feel a little disappointed in some ways with the fact that they got the C-level title and didn't suddenly get a slew of enticing backdoor opportunities, job offers, et cetera. So they're like, okay, I have to do some work on this, but I don't have the time and I don't know how, and I'm afraid to make a misstep. Those are folks who come to us.
00:25:31
Speaker
And then other groups are teams of C-level folks, sometimes VPs, and actually in those points that like the marketing director who usually reaches out to say, love to hear what you could do for our team. And it was transformative. It was like a couple of conversations. It was a few worksheets and it was enough to like
00:25:51
Speaker
totally transform my thinking, totally transform our messaging, our website. And also, and I know I've said this to you offline too, it gave me so much more language and clarity to use on calls with prospects in a way that I feel has been so resonant and really contributed to signing some new clients. I guess TLDR work with Kelly, but centrally that's how positioning, how the positioning work.
00:26:16
Speaker
which is just a couple worksheets and one conversation unlocked a shitload of insights for me. And to your point, it wasn't like huge. It wasn't like, Oh, I thought we served farmers, but actually we serve mechanics. I thought we serve founders and execs, but actually we just serve execs and that matters a lot.
00:26:37
Speaker
You've just done such a perfect job of explaining. I think that's exactly it. And it's not like you came to this thinking, I have no idea who my customer is. You felt pretty good about who it was. But I think just taking the time to ask those questions, being challenged to get more specific about it. And then the other thing that you did was went off and had a couple of conversations with people. So you did a little bit of research. You did get to hear from them.
00:27:01
Speaker
And I think that reinforced some of the things, hunches that we had and things that we talked about in terms of, okay, what's the mindset that people have coming into this and what are they really struggling with? What are their problems? And that's the other big thing that we talk about in the course is really defining that real problem that you solve for people. And there's always two levels to it. There's this more obvious problem that you could sit at a bar and talk to somebody and say, what's going on? And it's the thing that they'll bring up right away.
Identifying Deeper Customer Problems
00:27:29
Speaker
that they can externalize, it's a bit more tangible. But then there's always a deeper problem behind that. So if you keep investigating and say, why is that a problem for people? Then you can get to the deeper problem. And a brand that I worked with recently, actually an estate agency brand in the UK, which I know sounds a bit weird, but it was a fascinating project to work on. And they have
00:27:52
Speaker
It's an interesting industry. I think when you say estate agent, most people have this like image of a kind of sleazy guy with slicked back hair and a two white smile. That's going to wheel you and deal you. And interestingly, this company was going through a big transformation and they just had a brand new business model that was actually way more customer focused and not really all about the estate agent. You could go that route if you wanted to, but they also were really empowering their customers with.
00:28:18
Speaker
data transparency, the ability to do the process all by themselves and not have to go through that. So they were facing an industry where everything has been done exactly the same for the last 200 years, even though tech has advanced, the industry has not caught up with it. And there's this weird sentiment of you have to deal with these people you don't trust and you don't even really like.
00:28:39
Speaker
to go through a process that's actually pretty horrible. I don't know anyone who buys, rents, or sells a home. Yeah, that was a great process. It went really smooth. It was easy. Everything about it just feels hard. Getting into the customer mindset about that and really investigating what the problem is,
00:28:56
Speaker
There was this more obvious problem that was like, oh yeah, I have to deal with this person that I don't trust. It's the thing that we just articulated. Then if you keep digging deeper, there's a deeper problem behind that, which is really about your home is the biggest asset you'll probably ever own for most people. It's like one of the things you'll spend the most money on. Your home is also like your day to day life. It symbolizes like so many things about how you feel about your life, how comfortable you are. It's a really, it's the inheritance you might pass down to your kids. Like it's actually a huge thing.
00:29:26
Speaker
And the deeper problem behind that, yeah, it's a horrible process, I have to deal with this person I don't trust, is this feeling of, I don't want to put my future in the hands of someone I don't trust. And then when you understand that deeper problem, then you can really get into the psychology of who the person is and build your brand on top of that. So we really looked at themes like transparency, empowerment for the customer. So we built all of the messaging around being able to own your next move.
00:29:54
Speaker
lifting the curtain, being able to see behind the scenes, helping people see the other side of a process that's always kept them on the outside. And it really starts to, not in an obvious way, but speak to that deeper problem. And that's really, I feel like getting solid on the problem is such a game changer. It's a game changer for
00:30:12
Speaker
building a business that has integrity that actually solves things that people go to sleep worrying about at night and that are like significantly motivating problems to solve. Because a lot of you can also get caught up in solving these problems that like aren't that motivating for people. I talked to a lot of startups who they're like, yeah, we know the problem we solve. But when they tell me, I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to be willing to download an app.
00:30:37
Speaker
and spend time inputting information into that app to get the thing you're telling me I'm going to get, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. And you can just bring that bullshit meter to things to really get to the core of why it's important, why anyone would care about it. And that's ultimately, again, what investors are going to care about. If you have that insight and you tell an investor, they're like, wow, you really get it.
00:30:57
Speaker
And they also know that your product is probably going to evolve as you grow. So it's more important that they believe you, they believe in you and they believe in the fact that like you have that insight, something someone else doesn't. And your products can always like change around that or figure out better ways to serve that need. But really knowing what that need is like the big important first step.
00:31:21
Speaker
So you've got your purpose. Position is understanding the problem you're solving, exactly who you're solving it for and like how you're solving it in a different or more innovative way.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah, the last couple I'll talk about very briefly, the last couple of things that come into positioning are getting clear on what your defendable difference is. So once you know that problem that you're solving, it's okay, but what's the main benefit that it doesn't give people? So it's like the problem is like a negative thing. Then you look for like the positive opposite, which is the benefit that you're bringing to people.
00:31:54
Speaker
And then just getting clear on what your defendable difference is. So it's the thing that you pull out of all
Boldness in Branding
00:32:00
Speaker
of this. So for the brand, I was just talking about Purple Bricks, this is a state agency brand. Their defendable difference, excuse me, is all around transparency and helping people see the other side of the process. And that's something that no one else in the industry can claim that they do. So it's just like pulling that thing out and like dramatizing it a bit, making it really clear and obvious for people.
00:32:22
Speaker
I know like for Medbury, like when we went through the exercise, it was standing against shitty, cringy content, cookie cutter, gimmicky strategies that like generate likes, but are embarrassing. And like in the longterm, bad for someone's brand. So I found that a really helpful part of the exercise is like, what are you not? And for me actually, that ended up being a bit of some of the new message.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you just said it so well because it's something that you can play into to be like a bit more challenging, right? Oh, okay. Everyone else does it that way. We do it this way. Or it allows you to speak truth to things that people are often afraid to say. You have to know what you stand against in order to know what you stand for.
00:33:08
Speaker
Totally. And it ignites that challenger archetype, which I think is a really powerful one when it comes to marketing. Cause it's one with like clarity and conviction. Actually speaking of stuff that's being of LinkedIn, sometimes having some good content on it. There's this copywriter, Liz, I think it's will wilt us or will it as she's right. And she posted something the other day about how your content should make you feel a little bit nervous. And I was thinking about the work you and I did.
00:33:36
Speaker
And actually, so I was talking to like my fiance Matt about, so I'm thinking of this as the tagline, something like I'm playing around with to the effect of something like great brand strategy on LinkedIn for execs who hate LinkedIn. And I was like, I like it.
00:33:51
Speaker
It's like bold. It's clear. It's true to these things I'm hearing from people I'm interviewing. And he was like, Oh, I don't know. That's pretty like intense. And I only say that. And who knows if that's the right way forward for us, maybe offline. You'll be like, don't fucking do that. That's it. It did remind me too. Something I feel like happens when you get into brand work.
00:34:12
Speaker
is you get brave and you get clear. And then sometimes other people in your life who you might ask for input on, they're not going to have gone on that journey with you. And they just might be like, whoa, I don't know if I'd do that. It just, I don't know exactly where I'm going with it. Except to say, if you do brave brand work, you really do have to be brave. And not everyone you talk to is going to be like, I think that's a great idea. But it might just be because they don't have the foundation of all of this knowledge, the tactics that you teach. But it's also.
00:34:42
Speaker
It's exactly the response you want because it goes back to what we said earlier. You don't want to be for everybody. You can't be for everybody. You want to have reactions where someone doesn't agree with you.
00:34:54
Speaker
And it's interesting, we used to talk about this a lot at my old agency, Mightily, where this funny thing happens like when people talk badly about your brand online, or if they take issue with something, your fans will come to your defense. They'll start, they'll rally behind you. If you've created a good brand that stands for something really clear and stands against something,
00:35:15
Speaker
Your fans will then just start defending you and saying why they're wrong. And I'm not saying you want to always be super controversial, but you want to have points of view where people can disagree with you. And that just means you've built something with a specific person with a specific view of the world in mind.
00:35:40
Speaker
And it's great because it creates conversation. So maybe Medbury wouldn't, maybe Matt wouldn't be a great client for Medbury. And that's fine. If he's turned off by that, then maybe he's not your right client, but somebody else is going to be like, they're going to laugh. And they're going to say, yeah, that's exactly what I think. Yeah, totally. All right. So we've got purpose and position. So purpose, you walk away with a one or two sentence statement position. Like what's the exercise or the tangible thing? There's like a few, a paragraph, like your positioning statement.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of ways to do this. I know we've all heard of positioning statements before and they can be really helpful. I think what we have is a framework that defines each of these things.
00:36:21
Speaker
So you come, you walk away with a clear, easy, like phrase or sentence for each of the things that we went through. So it's, you don't have paragraphs about each thing. It's just like one sentence. So you can remember, but you just need to be able to remember it. Is it one sentence per position in total or like one sentence for these many aspects? Yeah. It's like a phrase or sentence for each. So for your customer, you have.
00:36:42
Speaker
phrase that that describes who they are who that mindset is your defendable difference is like a phrase or a sentence that's about what's that thing that makes you different so there's just like a one sheet where you have all these things and you can glance at them and refer back to them all the time and then you stitch them together at the end it's a bit of a mad lib where you there are some blanks you fill in the blanks with the phrases that we came up for each of the things and then you have a statement that explains exactly
00:37:08
Speaker
why, what you do, who you're for. And now that becomes the thing that you put on your website or the thing that you pitch to people. It's the 30 second elevator pitch. Like some of this language can get really easily lifted right onto your website, right into a pitch deck, right into an about us page, which, and also too, I like that this is also succinct because it's also something that like, you could put this all in a powerful one pager and give it out to everyone at the company and have sales reps put it next to their desk and that language will
00:37:38
Speaker
seed itself into how they talk to each other about the work, how they talk to clients and prospects about the work. I think that's really powerful. But I'm forgetting the third P. There's purpose, position, and personality. Personality. Okay. Talk about that one a little bit.
Brand Personality and Engagement
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So your personality is just like how you show up in the world. It's what do you look like? How do you speak?
00:38:03
Speaker
It's what gives you a point of view that people can connect with and it makes you feel human. So it's, if this company was a person, what would that person be like? So there are a lot of things that you can get into. One thing I like talking about a lot is the fact that like interesting brands, just like we said, like you want to have something you stand against.
00:38:24
Speaker
Interesting brands have personalities that have tension. So a lot of times when you see people do these exercises, they'll be like, we're trustworthy, we're honest, we're reliable. But like all of those words actually just mean the same thing. And that doesn't sound like a very, if you knew a human being and that was how you describe them, they wouldn't be very interesting to you.
00:38:43
Speaker
So you want to set up things that don't necessarily seem like they belong together right away. And other things that come into personality, you and I have talked about this before, where I think a common
00:38:56
Speaker
misconception is that good writing is a brand or good writing is just a personality. So okay, if you can just write well, then that's all that it is. And that might be an outcome of something, but that's not the personality itself. It's, it should be something that like,
00:39:17
Speaker
informs the entire business, like how to act. Like when you ask questions, when things happen in culture that you want to react to, it helps to define like how you show up in reaction to those things.
00:39:30
Speaker
what's right or not for you to do. It's not just how you write. It's as if you're putting this like suit, zipping up a suit and putting it on and embodying this personality of a fully formed person. And a really great example of this is Duolingo. Most people think of that. Have you seen their TikTok or have you seen a lot of stuff about Duolingo? No.
00:39:51
Speaker
They have an incredible TikTok following. They've really used the owl and personified it. And there's so much stronger than many other brands. They really use the guidelines of their personality, which is an app that helps you learn how to speak foreign languages. But their personality is really challenging, funny. It surprises you because it's always like,
00:40:16
Speaker
playing off of things in culture that you wouldn't expect it to. It's just like bizarre at times. And like at first blush, you wouldn't think you might be like, Oh, a learning app, it needs to be credible. People need to trust it. But those things are so boring. Every company needs to be that. And by creating this kind of like,
00:40:35
Speaker
really out there personality. And actually, when you think about how the product works, it's not so out there. It makes perfect sense. They've taken something that is boring usually, like sitting in a classroom, reciting phrases back to a teacher, getting a grade into this fun, gamified, sort of silly experience at times.
00:40:57
Speaker
where it feels more like playing a video game or playing a game on your phone than it does actually feel like that sort of classroom environment. So then their personality reflects that. It's a bit tongue in cheek. It's really lighthearted. If you think about the little duo, everyone knows the duolingo sound, the little doo-doo. It's this very, I don't know, it sounds like a bird sort of tweeting or something. It's a much more lighthearted sound. So you can see how they show up in all, in every way.
00:41:26
Speaker
embodying that personality. So it's like how the product works all the way through the sounds that it makes all the way through to how it shows up on social media and interacts with people. All right, cool. So we've got purpose, position, personality. Folks that walk away from their MVB will encompass like language and refined work on all of that, which seems really powerful. Is there anything else around the course itself that you just want to like highlight or
Course Value and Enrollment Details
00:41:50
Speaker
flag? Hey, if you take this course, you're really going to come away with XYZ.
00:41:57
Speaker
Sure. I think the biggest thing is it just gives you, I think what it really gives you is like confidence. Some of the things that you were saying, what I feel like most people, the feeling they have after doing this, they feel really energized and excited about what they're doing because it can feel really nebulous when you're building something. You have something there.
00:42:19
Speaker
But you just, you know, I talked to a friend who's building a femtech startup and it took her like 30 minutes over dinner to try to explain her product to me and what she's doing. And I was like, wow, okay, we need to have a conversation because you should be able to tell me this in one sentence. And I think that's how a lot of people feel, right? They know they have something, they're really passionate about it, they want to talk about it, but it's too, they can't get to the essential bits because there's so much in your mind.
00:42:46
Speaker
And it's hard to have distance. It's hard to separate yourself from all the complexity of it. So when you have this sort of guided process that gives you clarity, it's the most energizing, exciting, confidence instilling thing. And everyone walks away just feeling like, wow, I can take on the world now. I know what I'm doing. I'm so ready to go. And I know that's not such a tangible outcome.
00:43:16
Speaker
But it is, I think, the most important thing. The tangible outcomes are things we've talked about. There's like frameworks in every single section that make it easy to understand. There's a workbook that has all of these elements in it that you can come back to the minimum viable brand and iterate on. So you have all of the work done. It's basically like the giant first draft of what you would get if you spent 20, 50, 100K working with an agency for four to six months. We just get you there faster.
00:43:43
Speaker
and do it in two weeks. It's pretty cool. No, I totally, I know what you're talking about. I found the clarity energizing. And also I think too for founders or maybe folks who work in marketing at early stage startups, I can't speak as much to that experience.
00:44:00
Speaker
It's a creative process to start a business for many people and you're excavating. You're constantly, you're starting with a lump of clay and you're like, what is this? What statue does this look like? And I feel like the brand work is very expedited excavation. Like you really get to the shape of something in a meaningful way, really fast with it in a way that I found very useful. And also I will say too, a final thing is I think so often with brand it has
00:44:28
Speaker
The connotation of being a nebulous, expensive, nice to have you do after your fourth round of funding.
00:44:34
Speaker
And I know you really believe you're like, no, it is a red thread that's woven into your business model, your reason for being. And I think that earlier one can do it the better. And I think it's so cool that you're doing this course at an accessible price point for startups or early stage founders, because those are the folks that really need it. But also it's not just another note in the column of it's not a nebulous, nice to have. Like I said to you, like I've signed a few high ticket clients.
00:45:04
Speaker
just from doing this work and getting that clarity. It's so important and helpful in the early stages. Yeah, it gets you there faster, like you said. I think the last thing I would add is
00:45:16
Speaker
Even though the course is built with this sort of startup mindset, and again, a huge part of wanting to do it was after working with all of these companies, there's only so many we can have in the accelerator. There's only so many companies I can work with day to day. It's just the desire to want to serve more at a price point that's accessible, like you said.
00:45:36
Speaker
And even though it's built for startups, it's actually a great course for anybody who works in any kind of like innovative part of a company. So even if you work for a really big brand, it's not that the frameworks are so different. They're the same frameworks that you would use.
00:45:51
Speaker
And while if you work for Nike, it's not like just do it is going to change. That's not the point. It's the fact that Nike is always launching like sub brands and new products. And in order to bring that like innovation mindset into a bigger organization, it's great for that stuff too. So if you are a marketer in a bigger organization and you just want to have a refresh on the sort of innovation mindset and building brands or sub brands or products within a bigger company, it's great for that too.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah, no, I can totally see that. All right. So if our folks are listening and they're like, okay, I'm sold. Where can Maeve find you, follow you, sign up for this course? Yeah. So all you have to do is go to maven.com and type a minimum viable brand or my name, Kelly Corny. It's Kelly with an I into the search and you will find the course.
00:46:46
Speaker
So that's how you can find the course. You just have to send a quick application that asks a couple questions. It's like less than five minutes to fill out. It's just send your LinkedIn profile. Do you have a company? What's the website? Stuff like that. And then I'll get in touch with you directly. I'm also offering over the next week before the course starts some consulting sessions, free consulting sessions with people. I guess we can put the link in the notes for the show Meredith, but
00:47:13
Speaker
I am making available some time on a Calendly link for people to book 30-minute consults with me and doesn't obligate you to take the course or anything like that. I'm just making some time available to meet people and help them with their problems. That is available and I have a couple of other things I'll be launching over the next couple of months.
00:47:38
Speaker
I'm putting out a short podcast that is basically teaching a lot of the things, a lot of the foundations of how to create a brand strategy. So again, just trying to make this content available to more people. So that'll be coming soon and also launching a personal website. But for now, you can just find me on LinkedIn. Give me a follow. It's Kelly Corny, K-E-L-I-C-O-R-N-E-Y.
00:48:06
Speaker
Okay, so we'll put the link to the Maven course, your Calendly link, and your LinkedIn. We'll throw those in the show notes for anyone who wants to follow you or chat. This is super fun, Kelly. Thank you so much. Thank you, Meredith. Always fun to talk to.
Closing Remarks
00:48:26
Speaker
Hey content people, do you mind if I call you that? If you like the show, there are a few ways you can stay in touch and support us. The first is you could subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. The second is you could leave a five star rating and a review.
00:48:43
Speaker
Those make a really big impact. I know they're a pain and they take a little bit of time, but if you're feeling generous and you've been listening to the show, I'd appreciate it so much. And the third is you could sign up for the Content People newsletter. The link is in the show notes. We share news about the show and episodes. And I also write a lot about the intersection between work and creativity, which is at the heart of so many of these Content People conversations. We also love feedback if you want to.
00:49:08
Speaker
request a guest or a topic, pitch yourself to be on the show, advertise with us, learn more about Medberry social media, or otherwise just be in touch, shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you. It's Meredith at medberryagency.com. That's M-E-D-B-U-R-Y agency.com. I will throw that in the show notes too. All right, until next time.